Page 179 - The Tribology Handbook

Flexible couplings B4

Flexible couplings are used to connect the shafts of separate machines and take up any small misalignment that there may
be between them.

COUPLING TYPES

Gear couplings

Hubs fitted to the shafts of the coupled machines have gear
teeth around their periphery and these mate with internal
gear teeth on ai sleeve which couples the two hubs together.
The gear imeshes transmit the torque between the
machines but allow relative movement to accommodate
the misalignmient.

Multiple membrane couplings

The hubs on the shafts of the coupled machines are
connected to an intermediate spacer by flexible members.
These members are made from stacks of thin laminations
so that they aire flexible in bending and strong in tension
and shear.
Some couplings use the flexible members as tangential
links to provide tension connections. Other couplings use
radial or disc shaped links in which the torque is tran-
smitted in shear.

Contoured disc couplings

In this type of coupling the hubs on the machine shafts are
coupled to an intermediate shaft by thin discs. These discs
have a variable thickness in a radial direction to give a
more even stress distribution and are made of high
strength material.

B4.1